While I did not take my two week beach vacation completely “off,” I did not do a ton of work. That means this first week back has been something.
We got back from the beach Saturday afternoon. I decided to record five Before Breakfast podcast episodes that night. On Sunday I sent them in, got my various newsletters squared away, and did podcast prep for a massive recording session on Tuesday. That gave me space on Monday to work through the results from my recent Evening Hours Challenge, and to approve the various surveys that will be part of my upcoming Better Workday Challenge (a 3-week project where people test out three strategies designed to make any workweek better. You can sign up here if you’d like! The results will be used anonymously in my next book. You can still sign up if you did the Evening Hours Challenge too. As usual, my sign-ups tend to skew more female, so male readers are particularly encouraged to sign up – thank you!).
On Tuesday, Sarah and I recorded an episode of BOBW, two intro + Q&As for upcoming interview episodes, plus I interviewed Sarah for Before Breakfast. Yep, Before Breakfast will be launching a weekly longer show in mid-September — I’ll explain the reasoning in this weekend’s Week’s Worth newsletter, but suffice to say it’s a new project.
At noon we did the BOBW Patreon community’s monthly meet-up. Then I finished packing, dropped my 14-year-old off at the high school to take the bus to a cross-country meet and I drove to Newark Airport. I was flying to Austin, TX to give a speech, and American Airlines does very few flights there (they are always at bad times out of PHL, or else require a connection) so I tend to drive to Newark so I can fly direct. I practiced my speech in the car! Then I parked in the garage for Terminal C (an important point for later – the Newark flights flew out of C).
The upside of it being an afternoon event in Austin on Wednesday is that after having a long lovely night of sleep (10:30 CT-7:30 CT) I could work in my hotel room all morning. Even if the morning did not start that early! I had avocado toast for breakfast, worked until 11:30, went to the green room, met everyone and worked there and then gave my talk to the group in early afternoon. It was an all-women (well, 90%) audience as it was a women’s conference, which is always fun. I feel like my material is useful for all people but it tends to land best with people like me, which is probably true for humanity in general.
I was back at the Austin airport that afternoon, and on a 6:26 p.m. flight back to Newark. We landed early, but unfortunately, we landed in Terminal A. I have no idea why United and Newark do this. Flights to/from various destinations alternate between terminal A and C and they are no where close together. So I had to go wait for a shuttle bus to Terminal C. Given that it was 11 p.m., there was a certain amount of gallows humor among the folks waiting for this bus, though I got to talking with one of the Newark airport employees who was herding us around and she mentioned that she never wanted to fly because people were so grumpy when she was dealing with us at the airport, which I thought was kind of sad. Anyway, I made it to my car at something like 11:20, and onto the highway around 11:30, which put me home at 12:55 a.m.
I was in bed around 1:15 a.m. but my goal of sleeping in this morning was somewhat thwarted by the sheer volume of activity around this house. I made it to about 8:15 a.m. with a lot of in and out. Oh well — there’s more running around later today but for now I’m having my coffee and getting a bit less discombobulated…
Photo: Books available for conference attendees.
I’m glad you made it back safely since I know you have another flight to catch later today! That is quite the whirlwind week.
That is too bad that the Newark employee has to deal with grumpy travelers. I try to remind myself that the people at the airport are very rarely to blame for what is happening so I try to be very kind and patient. I’d be annoyed to have to take a bus to get to the terminal where I was parked… what a terrible set up! It’s so odd to fly in/out of multiple terminals! I think that is a united hub so I guess the # of flights must be too high for one terminal to accommodate them. But what a headache!
@Lisa- yep, in the hierarchy of people responsible for the terminal set-up, the lady herding folks on the shuttle bus is…pretty far down on the list. But she is the one who has to deal with it.
Yes, Ms. Laura Vanderkam, I’ve signed up the form. And yes, I would like to join the Evening Hours Challenge as well. I wasn’t there when it was in progress.
I can see how you give the tag “TIME MANAGEMENT” to this blog post, since that is what this blog post is all about. I also think that you mean that the airport staff member never wanted to fly because people were so grumpy at around 11:00 p.m., and she never wanted to be such a grumpy person. Is that right?